


Lips Raw With Love

by MyJediLife



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Balance in the Force (Star Wars), F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), Idiots in Love, Jedi Shenanigans (Star Wars), Kissing, Lightsabers (Star Wars), Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates, The Force, True Love's Kiss, face melting, the Force works in mysterious ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29212758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyJediLife/pseuds/MyJediLife
Summary: Their kiss on Exegol wasn't their first kiss...Nor would it be their last.
Relationships: Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 64
Collections: To Find Your Kiss: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	Lips Raw With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stellardarlings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellardarlings/gifts).



[ ](https://imgur.com/QSDxvug)

Time is a funny thing. It bends, twists and loops. It oversees the end of life, the beginning of life - and everything in between. It’s a force to be reckoned with, and sometimes… well, sometimes it lets beings try something over again until they get it right.

***

Rey couldn’t feel Ben anymore in the Force.

It always made her panic, thinking that this time might be the last time she ever felt him. What would she do without him - her soulmate and the only person she had ever been in love with?

They had been here before, time and time again. She could only hope that this time was the last, and that they could leave the crumbling relic of an ancient, derelict religion behind together.

Did Darth Sidious get some kind of sick pleasure out of this? Rey could never think of him as her grandfather - how could she be the flesh and blood of someone so hideous?

_ Stop thinking, Rey… you know what you have to do! _

Taking in a deep breath, Rey closed her eyes, knowing that Ben was somewhere at the bottom of the crevasse within the Sith Temple. She only had moments before Sidious would make her choose between becoming a Sith Empress or fighting him - which always had disastrous consequences.

She had to survive - and more importantly, at least to her - Ben had to survive. 

Rey had tried to live without him the first time this had happened. The Battle of Exegol had seen many losses to the Galaxy - but Ben’s was the one she felt the most. No one understood, of course, because she hadn’t told anyone. Rey simply couldn’t find the words to explain that the Supreme Leader of the First Order had not only been Leia’s son - but was her soulmate - her other half in the Force.

She had spent days replaying their kiss in her mind. Hours wondering what life would have been like had he survived. Would he return to the Resistance Base with her? Would they explore the Galaxy together, finding others who could wield the Force as well?

The nights had been the worst for her. She would toss and turn, desperate to sleep, thinking about the life she had been robbed of.

She deserved more. Ben deserved more.

Rey had travelled to Coruscant, and then to Exegol, with Ben’s last words echoing in her brain -  _ I will always be with you. _

“Be with me,” Rey whispered as she pushed outwards with the Force, searching for the unique essence that belonged to her soulmate.

When she found it, she wrapped her own essence around it, sending tendrils of healing Force energy into it until it was pulsing with its own energy.

“Be with me,” Rey said again, slightly louder as the noise of the Sith Eternal cultists chanting grew louder.

Flashes of light exploded within the Force, a cacophony of voices coming to Rey’s ears. Faces came to her mind, of Jedi from ages past, and from the recent past. Both her Masters voices came to her, the Skywalker twins smiles warming and encouraging her from within.

Finally, another voice came to her through the Force, this one filled with amusement as it stated simply, “No one’s ever really gone.”

Rey opened her eyes to find Ben standing beside her, a smirk on his bruised face, his injuries healed enough by her Force healing to keep him on his feet and back into the battle. “Took you long enough, what were you doing down there, searching through some ancient Sith texts for something new to use?”

Ben gave a dignified snort as they turned once more to stand side-by-side, the Sith Eternal chanting growing to a crescendo around them as Sidious prepared to make his final attack on them both.

“Well, sweetheart, this is, what? The twenty-second -” Ben stopped as Rey interjected.

“Twenty-third.”

“Fine. Twenty-third time we’ve tried this? I’m getting quicker.” He glanced at her from the side of his eyes, a wry smirk coming to his lips as she shook her head slightly.

“You and I both know I’d never tried using that method of Force healing before. I had to have impeccable timing.” Rey looked over at Ben, who simply nodded.

They both knew what they had to do - and this time, they had the power to do it.

_ This will work this time, sweetheart. I can feel it. _

Rey gave a nod in response to Ben’s voice in her head. It was hard for her to remember now what it had been like without the ability to speak to her dyad in the Force through their bond. After weeks of silent suffering, Rey had given Poe the news that she and Chewbacca would be leaving the Resistance behind to pursue their own interests.

Of course, General Dameron had been less than thrilled to lose his only Jedi. Rey was certain he had high hopes to use her as a ploy to get the Galaxy to agree with the Resistance’s effort to unite the Galaxy under a new governmental system.

She knew better, though. She knew that people just wanted to live their lives in peace with the people they cared about the most, without being told what to do.

Chewbacca was the only person Rey could be honest with, and her friend had reacted with a loud wail of despair, thinking about his best friend’s son being so manipulated he had become the dark warrior for the First Order. His tone changed, though, when Rey explained that after Leia’s death, Ben had rejected his mantle as Kylo Ren and become Ben Solo again.

Rey had never seen a Wookiee weep before, but that night she had found herself folded in his arms as he let tears soak into her hair. After they were in the hyperspace lane to Coruscant, Rey explained her hypothesis and what she was looking for - and Chewie was more than happy and willing to help. She discovered he had a mate, as well, back on his homeworld of Kashyyyk, so he understood what it was like to be without the one person you loved most.

And she loved Ben Solo.

Chewie, of course, had been full of anecdotes about her dyad in the Force, and Rey had even been lucky enough to see old holovids of Ben that Han and Leia had stashed away.

_ Focus, sweetheart. We have a job to do, then we get to kiss and we can talk about this being in love thing, okay? _

_ Nerfherder _ , Rey thought back to Ben as she rolled her eyes.

The couples focus shifted as Sidious sent a wave of electric Force lightning towards them, and both Ben and Rey gritted their teeth as they crossed their lightsabers and pushed the Force into a bubble around them. As the Force lightning crackled around them, trying to find a crack in their carefully practised and constructed armor, they let their Force signatures wrap around the others, grunting with the effort as they took a step forward together, watching as Sidious’ face registered shock as his attack failed.

The chanting of the cultists faded away as they focused on the task at hand, pushing back with the Force against the onslaught of Force lightning. Sidious was strong, certainly, but they were a Dyad in the Force. Two that were one, and they had learned how to work together, combining their Force powers into one unstoppable machine.

The Galaxy had never had such a powerful combination.

_ Now! _ Ben’s voice came into her head, and Rey nodded, once more gritting her teeth as they both pushed back against the Force lightning with their combined power, keeping the defensive bubble around them as they moved forward together as one entity, almost.

As they drew closer to the old Sith Lord, his face contorted in horror and pain with every step they made, deflecting his own energy back at him. Their bond became a cacophony of voices and faces now, cheering them on and encouraging them, the ghost of Jedi past watching as the true enemy of them all grew weaker with each centimeter the dyad gained.

Sidious shrieked as his own Force lightning was turned back against him, his body shuddering as flesh and bone started to melt away. With one last gasped “Nooooo…” the Sith Lord disappeared in a cloud of dust as the stones of the temple started to shake around them as the Resistance started their attack on the Final Order fleet above them.

Ben fell to his knees, pulling Rey down with him as a large statue crumbled to the ground, narrowly avoiding them both. The sounds of screams echoed through the crashes of stone and explosions from above as the cultists tried to flee their disintegrating temple.

They were both exhausted - mentally and physically, yet they held onto the defensive Force shield around them until the last rumble shook the rocks around them, and the only sounds were that of explosions from the skies above Exegol.

Ben and Rey looked around cautiously, finding themselves alone in the remnants of the great chamber, and Rey turned on her knees to look at him, a grin coming to her lips. “How do you feel?” she asked cautiously, reaching out with bloodied, shaking hands to cup Ben’s face tenderly.

“Like kissing the woman I love senseless before running away with her to some remote corner of the Galaxy for the rest of our lives,” Ben deadpanned before letting his lips curve into a brilliant smile that had Rey’s heart thumping in her chest.

“She’s a lucky woman,” Rey remarked, leaning in and pressing her lips to Ben’s. The kiss lasted a long time, neither of them wanting to let go of the moment, but finally the need for oxygen had them pulling away from each other, both of their lips kiss swollen and their cheeks red.

“She is lucky, and beautiful, and the best person I have ever met.” Ben smiled as he shakily got to his feet before reaching down and helping Rey to her own feet. “I’m really the lucky one in this arrangement, you know.”

Rey huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes again. “Stop talking, Solo, and kiss me again before you whisk me away to some far corner of the galaxy to become moisture farmers or something…”

“No,” Ben said, shaking his head. “No sand. We are not living anywhere near sand. I don't like sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets every-”

His words were cut off as Rey pulled his lips down to meet hers again, and neither of them spoke for a long time, letting all their emotions dance between them as they kissed over and over again.

It wasn’t their first kiss on Exegol, after all, and it certainly wouldn’t be their last.


End file.
